I personally prefer the way MATE handles and presents fonts (to my old eyes the fonts are much clearer and have better resolution). I also like the UI better. I also find that desktop tweaks are easier for me to make in MATE.

I like compiz. With compiz I can do things that no other computer desktop can do. And to use compiz I need to use something that is not based on Gnome 3. People spent years making Gnome 2 powerful and good looking; Xfce looks old-fashioned in comparison. So I'd prefer to use Gnome 2 rather than Xfce.

MATE has become fully usable in a very short time; it's impressive. They've definitely put to lie those that said there weren't enough people interested to keep Gnome 2 going.

Have to admit I don't see the point of MATE. I don't see how they can keep this thing up to date as Linux software evolves. I don't find it attractive, but then I was never a big fan of Gnome 2, and I don't really see what it offers over something like Cinnamon. Compiz is all well and good, but to me it still is pretty buggy after all these years. When I had Ubuntu installed, a lot of the effects were simply off limits because they caused stability problems.

I prefer the simple yet modern sleek of Cinnamon. I can have some pretty nifty effects without any messing about under the hood. I don't have to worry about effects causing problems with fullscreen video or games like Compiz, and there's no tearing. And it's based on new software, rather than dated libraries that will be hell to keep going in the future as the Linux software landscape moves forward. I don't want my desktop software to stay the same personally. I want the new innovative stuff please, not the ugly old stuff.

I agree with Condorman and also don't really see the point of MATE, I've been running Cinnamon on my desktop since it first came out and have had no problems worth mentioning. Yet, at the same time, I prefer Xfce on my laptop.

I have just read every post in this thread as I have wondered which is better, Mate or Cinnamon?I was surprised to see the majority favored Cinnamon, however, they also usually mentioned problems,lack of development of cinnamon and fixes, hardware not working, etc. Whereas, the Mate group mostly mentioned things like, rock solid, stable, hardware and video cards,everything works with it that does not with Cinnamon, etc.And a third group mentions XFCE as its nice, the way to go, etc then says BUT... and generally mentions they are going to stay with cinnamon or mate.Very interesting thread! Makes me wonder about people though.

DumbCluck wrote:I have just read every post in this thread as I have wondered which is better, Mate or Cinnamon?I was surprised to see the majority favored Cinnamon, however, they also usually mentioned problems,lack of development of cinnamon and fixes, hardware not working, etc. Whereas, the Mate group mostly mentioned things like, rock solid, stable, hardware and video cards,everything works with it that does not with Cinnamon, etc.And a third group mentions XFCE as its nice, the way to go, etc then says BUT... and generally mentions they are going to stay with cinnamon or mate.Very interesting thread! Makes me wonder about people though.

Yea, Cinnamon has a few issues. It is a very good desktop, and I use it daily. However, if these issues are not fixed by the next release, I'm probably going to switch to KDE or XFCE.

Hello world. I'm currently using Mint 11 Katya with the old Gnome 2.x desktop. Moving to LM 13 Maya to get on a long term support release. Call me a late adopter

What are the advantages or disadvantages Mate vs Cinnamon. I'm not a power user. Tried OpenSuse with KDE once, didn't like the OS, DE, or forum community. My understanding is that Mate is very close to the old Gnome DE. Cinnamon is similar, has some differences, but also most major bugs are worked out.

And yes, I know I should download live CD and try each version before installing Thanks in advance to the LM forum community.

You should use what you like, of course. I like cinnamon. I use MATE for quite a long time and recently just thought to give cinnamon a try with fresh install and it's very nice. Looks better than MATE and feels just as smooth and snappy.

There is only 1 thing that bothers me about it and I'm sure it'll be worked out soon enough and that is with nVidia twinview. putting the panel at top of screen basically crahses it. so dont do that if you be using twinview.

I have LinuxMint 13 Maya / MATE (32-bit) installed on four machines. For me, as a long time user of the Gnome Desktop on various distributions, LinuxMint 13 Maya MATE is truly the sweet spot. Almost everything just works the way I want and expect it to work.I have one machine dual booting MATE and Cinnamon. Cinnamon is nice if you are into that compiz-like animated windows stuff? I'm not so it's MATE for me.

One major annoyance with LM 13 Maya / MATE. On all my machines pushing the power button 'annoying-matically' shuts down the machine instead of getting the expected window with the options: 'Suspend | Restart | Cancel | Shutdown'. But I have found that editing the file: '/etc/acpi/powerbtn.sh' and changing by commenting out the very last line from this:

Cinnamon 1.6 will fix a lot of problems with its 2d/llvmpipe mode. Basically, this means that it will be able to work well with a much, much larger amount of graphics cards (and it *seems* stable). It will also have bug fixes and some other, actually pretty neat, features (assuming they all get implemented). The 2d thing is almost definite, as it is in the github builds.

Edit: Also, to those who don't see the point in MATE, it basically is gnome 2. It's a little bit more stable than Cinnamon, it currently works with many more graphics cards than Cinnamon, and it's for the people who won't give up compiz or gnome 2. And a note on Xfce - it is light, configurable, and very stable. It is almost everything MATE is in terms of customization and gnome 2-like-ness, and it's lighter. Personally, I like Xfce (or MATE if you are a die-hard gnome 2 fan) the best for most computers, but for computers that can run anything really well, I think everything is great (KDE, MATE, Xfce, Cinnamon, etc).

MATE's just re-branded GNOME 2, which is cool and all, but Cinnamon's based on the GNOME 3 codebase, and from what I've read, it's just about as easy to use as MATE/GNOME 2, so you get the best of both worlds with Cinnamon. But go with whatever you like, I mean choice and freedom's what Linux and BSD are all about, right?

As a new user, I have installed both MATE and Cinnamon several times for comparison, and struggled with the same issue of which to use for my final, long-term install. Personally, I find MATE much easier to customize, and things just seem more sorted. This may very likely just be because I don't know enough yet to make Cinnamon do what I want, but then, if it works, I am not going to argue with success! I have worried a bit about the fact that MATE is based on an older system. However, MATE will certainly be supported for the next few years, and it is always easy to change your DE. To me, MATE is a good, supportive place to start, and as I learn more, I can move to Cinnamon or something else later.

Are you not able to install both on the same linux install? Switch between both?

I had some issues with Cinnamon. Eventually it stopped loading and just gave me the background wallpaper with no files, right click, etc. I fixed it but then it came back. Was able to load with the desktop and files but the UI was not displaying correctly. Gnome had no problem working and loaded correctly. Maybe it's because I'm fairly new to linux, maybe I inadvertently changed something. Some small annoyances too, like mousing over menu items kept stretching the application menu right, not a functional problem but annoying.

So I switched to MATE... because there seemed to be instructions to install cinnamon through the package manager if I ever decide that I want to.

I really loved the potential for Cinnamon and it felt natural to use. But, I can always switch later